Sugarcake has been 80 less than two weeks and probably doesn't deserve all the gear she has. She also needs new pants. I've actually been looking over Pike's hunters' armories to get a basic idea of gemming, skimming through her articles, trying to find a Google search for BM hunter information that isn't a millenia old and adjusting my bars and rotation, but the actual time I can put into her is limited due to also, you know, working on Grad School stuffs. Which sucks, 'cause, I mean, Huntering is way more important than that obviously. I need to get my priorities in order.

As a side note, did you know levelling pets sucks? I'm trying to get Cinnamon, my Devilsaur, to 80. I did every single Nessingwary hunt and kill quest from start to achievement and my Devilsaur went from a bar and a half into 77 to a bar and a half away from 78. Not one level after massacring about 100 animals. And as soon as Cinnamon is 80, I need to get my wolf, Sprinkles, there from 75. Augh.

Until I get this huntard thing figured out and start doing at least 3k DPS consistently, I've respec'd three times, picked up Improved Hunter's Mark and glyphed it, so there's a reason to take me along besides pity, as long as there's another hunter. I'm messing around with FemaleDwarf.Com (how appropriate!) but my inexperience with spreadsheets (you can't really spreadsheet a healer) has me more often than not going "That's great! How come I can't do that..." and scratching my head in confusion.

I have learned a lot though. Like, putting Cinnamon on aggressive when Anub'arak burrows in ToC is hilarious and fun while removing the need to manually target the scarabs while also knocking down frost orbs. I need to tell Cinnamon to "Stay" at the bottom of the stairs in Thorim's gauntlet so he'll despawn when I jump down. Paletress likes to nuke him which, while really sucking for my DPS, is I suppose better for the group as a whole (especially PUGs). Koralon likes to set him on fire? Everyone stop beating up Cinnamon, geez.

I have also learned that someone's hunter is an orb hog. Yes, you. Jerk.

For now, I'll deal with Sugar being on the receiving end of all the jokes (my Resto Druid did 1.7k DPS and I was told "Congratulations, you've out DPS'd your hunter!" Her DPS is not that bad, butt heads). I'll keep working on her when I have time, adjusting her as I go, and trying out these things called "macros" perhaps. Besides my Bestial Wrath/Rapid Fire/Mark of Supremacy smash macro.

That one's fun.

EDIT: Stop is following the crowd as well. I wonder if this is gonna keep chaining? Whatever you do, don't jump off a bridge, Pike. At least two people would follow you!

13 comments:

Your pet will only gain experience on kills that would grant you experience, thus if you're killing grays - no XP. Off the top of my head I don't recall if that applies to Sholazar or not, for an 80 hunter.

I leveled my laser kitty from 77 to 80 by running dailies; took around three days at two hours a day. Another good place to go is Storm Peaks around the Maker's Hole In The Ground - get mammoth meat, and if you're a LW there's much good skinning to do.

Since I leveled many pets (so I could see how they would do as lvl80) I learned three ways to level pets fast from 75 to 80, and by fast I mean in about 4 to 6 hours.1) Do dungeons. Since I'm SV my pet contributes like 0 damage anyway (mobs die before my pet even reaches them unless I volleyspam and put it on aggressive) so people usually don't care.2) Have a friendly (pala)tank and farm the mobs in icecrown (those packs of ~8). I have a palatank on a second account (hunter on follow) and its about half an hour for one level.3) There is a spot in icecrown where mobs respawn like instantly (its southeast from the black blade flightpoint in the north). JMTC made a nice video: http://www.youtube.com/user/foldberg1#p/u/3/3ayMMzbrXUo and I tried that just yesterday.

I guess method 1 would be the easiest for you if you have people that don't care about your damage.

Hi !Don't worry, it tooks time to play well a new class. And sometimes, it's hard to figure out why your dps isn't that great with your main toon...

First, your spec is quite good, you don't need 5/5 in frenzy though, 3/5 or 4/5 is enough, and Mortal Shots is a great talent.

For your minor glyph you should really take Mend pet. Rez pet is a good choice too for your third minor glyph.

Your hit is low. You should reach 8%, you're only at 6,6% with the talent.You can put Ice Walker on your boots to begin with. And there is a hit enchant for gloves. That would be exactly what you need.

Many pieces of your gear are not enchanted. Put a scope on your xbow, some agility on your cloak, +8 caract on your chest, some AP on your pants... Some of your gems are really low level. You bought the dragon belt but are cheap on your enchants...

Just doing that (enchanting all your pieces, even with cheap enchants) gives you +130 dps on the spreadsheet...

After that, it your turn to play : hunter's mark, send pet, serpent sting up at al time, Arcane shot, and steady shot as a filler.

Make your pet life well visible to you so that you can call him back when he's taking damages. Generally, you can leave him with the melees so he will get a few Wild Growths but for some encounters, you need to know if you must call him back. keep a eye on the melee group to know that. For example, Koralon and fire at melee range : melee group getting damage, pet getting damage, get him out of hell until the tank is told to move so melee can dps again...

And remember, if he's not 80 yet, he will take more damages and do less dps, and that's not good for a BM hunter... As the above commenters said : bring him in heroics with your guildies, kill rhinos and mammoths in Storm Peaks and do your dailies in those high level zones.

And don't worry for your wolf : you can wait till the 3.3 because the xp pets need to level will be cut in half. Good news eh ?

Good luck and have fun with your hunter. This class is amazingly fun (imho) to play.

@Grimmtooth - Mobs still gave experience, or I wouldn't have done it! Problem is, I have three 80's and I'm constantly switching around, so I don't really get to focus.

@Matojo - Cinnamon is in all my groups. :) He's almost there!

@Pazi - thanks :D I'll try that.

@Nefernet - My character is less than two weeks old, and has been gearing up like mad. I didn't pay much for my Dragon Belt; all I paid for was Runed Orbs, and they were from the guild bank so they had a little discount. Also, my Hit was perfect but I just replaced my shoulders after my third respec, dropping it by over 1%. I have been replacing gear so fast it hasn't been worth it to enchant anything yet. Now that I've got a bunch of higher level stuff I'm going to invest in them, but with how little research I've been able to do, I haven't wanted to waste the money until I knew what I was doing. Thank you very much for the advice; I'm finishing up LW today or tomorrow so I can start making those cheap enchants and getting into the other aspects. :)

The reason you can't find any recent forums to help might be the fact that no one runs BM in raids anymore. My advice will be to play around with SV if you want higher numbers. Of course, it is at the expense of your beloved Cinnamon. Our top DPSers are running wolf pets right now, some sort of wicked attack power buff or something.

Nail on the head Nefernet. Hit cap is the single most important stat IMO. If you ain't hittin', you better be quittin'.

Take them through instances. Pets level much faster there. >.> My hunter tamed one of the ghost wolves before they put in the insta "I'm only 5 levels smaller!" pet change. I was level 70, the ghost wolf was level 30. Yes, yes you may cry with me. I still shudder thinking about it.

"I need to tell Cinnamon to "Stay" at the bottom of the stairs in Thorim's gauntlet so he'll despawn when I jump down." I have a macro keybound to 1, next to my pet attack and hunter's mark macro which pretty much pulls my pet out of bad stuff. /petfollow or /pet follow, I always forget if the space is there or not, but I don't desummon my pet on Thorim, press 1 when I jump down and my pet teleports to my feet! :D

And for pet experience, rares, elites, instances. Otherwise just drag it out while you quest as you have been doing, it's a buttpain :<

I recommend Warcraft Hunters Union for info about pet specs and hunter builds. Useful and don't make your brain explode from spreadsheets. I have a pally healer main and a hunter alt that I don't spend enough time on. WHU was a godsend when I first levelled the hunter to 80.

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Bellwether is a level 80 Druid on Dark Iron (PvP - US). She has experience in endgame raids, PvP and arena as a Restoration spec'd Healer. She also has knowledge on many other aspects of the druid class, including the other talent trees. Her alts include a Ret Paladin named Bellbell with a bitchin' attitude, and many ickle alties.Contact Information:E-mail: 4haelz AT gmail DOT comAIM: JuiceboxDaniMSN: bellwetherdani@live.comSubscribe to 4 Haelz!Picture provided by the lovely Phaelia of Resto4Life.

Sannhet is a Level 80 Ret Paladin, Frost DK and perhaps soon Warrior with an attitude and an occasional bone to pick. He loves to debate and hopefully he'll write in here to tell you how awesome he is (he's very awesome). He's been referred to on this blog before as "Button."